


Six Nights at the Rusty Nail

by beetle



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Inception AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-01
Updated: 2013-05-01
Packaged: 2017-12-10 03:34:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/781296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the inception_kink prompt: "The bar where Nash works isn't a gastropub, or one of those pricey postmodern places, or a wine bar... it's a bar bar. You walk down half a flight of steps into a dank, narrow underground space where the walls used to be white but are now greyish-brown, the carpets are damp, and there are tchotchkes all over the wall, order a beer or a rail liquor, get wasted and go home. Nash is the surliest, least helpful bartender ever and Cobb is the regular customer who drowns his sorrows in cheap whiskey. Their dysfunctional relationship. And if this is how they met pre-inception, so much the better. :)"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Six Nights at the Rusty Nail

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I wish I did own the rights to "Inception." The sequel would involve nothing but sex.  
> Notes: Non-dreamsharing AU.

 

I

  
  
“So . . . I left my wife.”  
  
The bartender, a young guy with curling, too-long hair and a Bollywood starlet’s dramatic eyes, looks at Dom blankly then shrugs, looking back at the bottle he’s in the midst of opening.  
  
“For my best friend.”  
  
A disinterested grunt.  
  
“Who I found out has been in love with my wife for eight years.”  
  
An eyebrow quirks so quickly, Dom’s scarcely sure it even moved.  
  
“They’re getting married in spring.”  
  
“That’s, uh . . . tough luck, buddy.”  
  
Dom hunches his shoulders and watches the dim, dive-y bar’s only other patron accept the opened Miller Lite sullenly. “Which is my way of asking what would you recommend for a man in my situation? A seven-and-seven? A Tom Collins?”  
  
Without missing a beat, the bartender cracks open another Miller Lite and slides it to Dom without meeting his eyes.  
  
“An analyst,” he says curtly, hurrying off to the other end of the bar. He flips open a ratty, old looking issue of  _Time_  magazine and reads.  
  
Ten minutes later, beer finished, Dom leaves the bottle on top of a ten dollar tip and slouches his way out of the bar, his shoes seeming to squish in the damp carpet. The bartender doesn’t look up or say good-bye.  
  
Dom mentally bookmaps the bar and steps into the cool November morning.  
  


II

  
  
“So . . . do you make mixed drinks, here?”  
  
The bartender mutters something, but puts his magazine down—this time, it’s an ancient _People_ —and turns to the wall of booze, leaning down toward the bottom shelf. Dom rolls his eyes.  
  
The bartender moves and shakes, then finally turns back to Dom, slamming down a glass of something that’s more ice cubes than liquor.  
  
“Scotch-rocks and soda.” Those dark, carefully blank eyes meet Dom’s for a moment. “That’ll be seven-fifty.”  
  
“Right,” Dom sighs, placing a twenty on the bar. The bartender takes it immediately—his fingers are long and tipped with bitten-down nails. “Keep the change.”  
  
If Dom expects a ‘thank you,’ he doesn’t get it. The bartender merely opens the register, puts in the twenty, makes change, then drops the change in the tip jar as if it’s garbage.  
  
Then he goes back to his magazine.  
  
Sighing again, Dom looks out the dingy window, through which very little filtered sunlight comes in. Through the film of dirt and dust, Dom can just about make out the stairs that lead up to the street.  
  
Dom thinks about leaving, Scotch-rocks and soda untouched.  
  
Instead, he nurses the drink till it’s watered down even more then quaffs it in one long swallow.  
  
He almost orders another then he thinks about the drive home . . . to his brand new, shiny, sterile, cavernous,  _empty_  apartment. It's not home, not  _really_ , but it's a damn sight better than this shitty dive, with its squishy carpet; dingy, off-white walls; and ancient, chipped, tacky bric-a-brac and tchotchkes.  
  
Not to mention its bartender, who has the shittiest attitude Dom's ever come across in person.  
  
He runs a hand through his hair and wipes at his eyes, knowing that even if the bartender sees, he won’t care. In fact, right now, Dom's just as alone in this bar, as he'd be in his fancy apartment.  
  
“Another. Please,” he tacks on belatedly, and the bartender slowly abandons his reading material to go about the task of making another drink.  
  
This time, when he hands it to Dom, he doesn’t make eye contact.  
  
Dom smiles bitterly and drinks in silence until the second customer of the day finally comes in, bringing with him the fall-scented breeze. Said breeze barely makes a dent in the sour beer/stale peanuts/dead dreams-fug of the place.  
  


III

  
  
The bar is practically crowded when Dom steps in one afternoon, already shrugging off his coat.  
  
Almost every stool at the bar is taken, and a few tables, too. All by dour, older men staring off into their own pasts or having monosyllabic conversations with miserable counterparts.  
  
In the midst of all this lovely atmosphere, the bartender is reading a novel, this time, the cover page bent back, his lips moving slightly as he reads.  
  
Dom hangs his coat on the scuffed coatrack and makes his way to one of the only stools left. It creaks warningly when he sits.  
  
The bartender doesn’t even look up, but he puts his novel down and begins making a drink.  
  
Watching the long, graceful hands move among the bottles, then glasses, Dom’s eyes eventually drift to the rest of the bartender. He’s average height and lanky, but his body is otherwise a mystery in a long, baggy plaid shirt and loose jeans.  
  
He snaps his eyes front and center when the bartender turns around and slides a glass toward him. Without saying anything, he then moves back down the bar, to his novel, and resumes reading.  
  
Curious, Dom picks up his glass and takes a sip.  
  
It’s a perfectly made Tom Collins. A  _strong_  one.  
  
And just as Dom finishes it, another one is slid between his hands. The first glass is whisked away and the bartender puts it in the sink.  
  
“Thanks,” slips out, quiet and pathetically touched. Dom hopes the bartender was too far away to hear it. As it is, the patron nearest him look over and mutters  _fag_ , before going back to his own drink: a watered-down scotch-rocks and soda.  
  


IV

  
  
“You want I should call ya a cab, buddy?”  
  
Startled, Dom looks up at the bartender, into those normally blank eyes. They’re not so blank, now, but Dom is too tipsy to read what’s in them.  
  
“A cab?”  
  
The bartender rolls his eyes. “Yeah. On account of you bein’  _wicked_  hammered, an’ all.” It’s the most Dom has heard the bartender say. He has a rather thick Southie accent. All his A’s are flat and rolling.  
  
Dom frowns. “I’m not hammered . . . am I?”  
  
The bartender snorts. “Well, lessee . . . you got here just after seven, and you’ve been steadily drinkin’ Tom Collinses for five hours straight. Yeah . . . I’d say that makes you hammered.” That mouth, thin but mobile, curls a little with what might be amusement. Or perhaps disdain.  
  
Huffing, Dom waves a dismissive hand. Or three. “I only had—what, five drinks?”  
  
“Uh . . . more’n that, buddy.” The bartender looks ceiling-ward for a moment. “Your tab’s seventy-five.”  
  
Dom fumbles out his wallet and slaps it on the bar. The bartender plucks it up and removes some bills, puts the wallet back into Dom’s sweaty hands and goes to the register. A few moments later, he comes back with change, and his eyes are blank once again.  
  
“I can’t stop ya from drivin’ like ya are, but I’ll for damn sure call the cops on ya if ya try.”  
  
Dom rolls his eyes and gets vertigo so bad, he nearly falls off the stool. He clutches at the bar to stay upright.  
  
When the spinning has lessened, he opens his squinched-shut eyes to see the bartender looking at him with that something in his eyes. Dom realizes in a sluggish flash that it’s  _concern_.  
  
“I walked here,” he says finally, and the bartender looks doubtful. “No, really. Needed to clear my head.” Dom pauses. “My ex-wife wants to move to Paris. With my kids.”  
  
The bartender’s brow furrows and his mouth opens, then closes. Then ope  
ns again.  
  
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he says quietly.  
  
“So’m I.” Dom looks down at his hands. At the broken heart-line. He wishes he believed in palm-reading, because if he had, his life wouldn’t have come as such a surprise. “Not that I blame her. It’s mostly my fault. She nearly died because I—“ Dom cuts himself off and wipes his mouth on the back of his hand. “Can I have another drink?”  
  
The bartender appears to think it over, his eyes drifting toward the ceiling once more, then back to Dom.  
  
“No,” he says, and Dom sighs.  
  
“Then I guess call me a cab.”  
  
“Okay, you’re a cab.” And with that the bartender turns away reaching for the grimy cordless phone near the sink.  
  
Dom doesn’t realize the man made a joke until the cab arrives.  
  


V

  
  
“Look . . . about the other night,” Dom says awkwardly when he sits at the bar, a week later.  
  
The bartender’s disinterested dark eyes meet his own briefly as he drums his fingers on the bar-top.  
  
“About that night, I’m . . . sorry,” Dom says quietly, glancing quickly around to see that none of the other patrons is listening. When his gaze returns to the bartender, those disquietingly still eyes remain on his. “I was drunk, and, well, that’s no excuse for what I said . . . or did, but it does explain why I felt . . . bold enough to, well, you know. I mean, you were kind enough to call me a cab, then help me into the cab, and I—“  
  
“Were drunk, like ya said,” the bartender finishes, eyes narrowed a little, mouth pursed. “And it’s not like you’re the first drunk guy to try somethin’ with me. Don’t go makin’ a federal case outta it.”  
  
“I don’t think I am. I think you deserve my sincerest apology, and that’s what I’m trying to give you.” Dom spreads his hands helplessly. “I don’t know what else to say, other than—“  
  
“—you’re sorry. I know. Ya certainly are,” the bartender says flatly, but his dark eyes flicker with something else Dom can’t read and is afraid to try.  
  
And when the bartender brings him a Miller Lite, he doesn’t have the heart to ask for a Tom Collins. And anyway, the bartender immediately goes back to his crossword puzzle.  
  


VI

  
  
“Ya missed last call, buddy.”  
  
Dom steps carefully down the snowy stairs, to the bar door and the man setting its alarm system.  
  
“Yeah, I kinda figured,” he says, not certain what else comes next. “It’s after two, after all.”  
  
“That it is,” the bartender says, setting the alarm with a final beep then shoving his hands into his pocket. He turns to face Dom. His eyes seem huge in his pale face and his shoulders are hunched against the chill—pointlessly, in such a thin, rayon jacket. Away from the bar-top, he looks smaller, almost frail. “Whaddaya want? Need me to call another cab for ya?”  
  
Dom blushes. “Ah, no. I drove, tonight.”  
  
“Good for you.”  
  
The bartender watches Dom warily for a few seconds, then shrugs, stepping past him. “Have a good one, buddy.”  
  
“You, too . . . uh—wait—“  
  
The bartender pauses. “Look, I gotta be back here in eight hours, so—“  
  
“Can I walk you to your car?”  
  
The bartender looks over his shoulder, at Dom, frowning. “Don’t have one.”  
  
Dom quickly casts about for something else. “Then, can I give you a ride?”  
  
The bartender shrugs then glares. “If you're trying to put the moves on me again, I  _swear_ —“  
  
Blushing, Dom quickly shakes his head no. “I won’t, I just—I don’t want to see you walk home on a night like this.” Which is true, as far as Dom’s concerned. And if he tries to use this . . . detente to maybe help erase what he did three weeks ago, then what of it?  
  
The bartender hunches his shoulders and turns away. “I do it most nights. That’s how I keep my girlish figure,” he says, continuing up the stairs.  
  
Dom, desperate, now, follows him, up the stairs and into the night. He keeps pace easily, though he has the distinct feeling the bartender is trying to out-walk him.  
  
“So, uh . . . that’s a pretty long shift you work, ten a.m. till two a.m.”  
  
The bartender shrugs, his mouth pursing. “What can I say, I got that whaddaya-callit? Protestant work ethic. 'Cept I’m Catholic.”  
  
“Huh.” Dom, himself, isn’t a believer in much of anything except: if it can’t be in one’s hand, it’s all in one’s head. But now’s hardly the time to antagonize or argue. “And how long have you been working at  _The Rusty Nail_?”  
  
The bartender casts him a haughty look. “Ever since I bought it, two years ago, pal.”  
  
“Ah.” Dom kicks himself for his assumption, however justified. “You’re young for a business owner.”  
  
The bartender snorts and laughs a little. “How old do ya think I am?”  
  
Dom shrugs. “Twenty-two, twenty-three?”  
  
“I’m twenty-six.”  
  
“Well, that’s still young.” Young enough that Dom shouldn’t be sniffing after him, at any rate.  
  
“Oh, really?” The bartender casts him a curious look. “And how old are ya, Methuselah?”  
  
“Thirty-seven.”  
  
The bartender whistles. “Sheesh.”  
  
“It’s not  _that_  old.”  
  
The bartender laughs, the first time Dom has ever heard him do so. It makes his attractive, but disagreeable face quite handsome.  
  
They step onto Caton Avenue, where Dom pauses, and surprisingly the bartender pauses with him.  
  
“My car is that way.” Dom points to the right.  
  
“Well, my place is  _that way_.” And with that, the bartender starts walking left. After taking a moment to sigh, Dom catches up.  
  
“I don’t even know your name,” he says, almost pleadingly.  
  
“Well, I haven’t told it to ya, so that’s understandable,” is the mild reply.  
  
“I’m Dom. Dominic Cobb.” Dom holds out his gloved hand and the bartender looks at it then takes it in one of his own. His hand is so cold, Dom can feel it through the glove. “Aren’t you going to tell me  _your_  name?”  
  
The bartender withdraws his hand and shoves it back in his pocket. “I’m thinkin’ about it.”  
  
“You make it awful hard for a guy to flirt with you, you know.”  
  
The bartender looks at him, wide-eyed and startled. He blinks, then looks ahead once more, lips twitching like he wants to smile.  
  
“You call  _this_  flirtin’, where ya come from?”  
  
Dom rolls his eyes, but can’t help the small thrill that goes through him. “Jesus, but you’re a tough nut to crack.”  
  
“I take that as a compliment.”  
  
“I meant it that way,” Dom says simply. “That’s what I like about you.”  
  
The bartender glances at him again for a long moment then smiles a crooked half-smile that makes him look ten years younger than his actual age.  
  
“I’m Nash,” he says finally, stopping dead in the middle of the sidewalk. “Benjamin Nash . . . well, thanks for the company. Have a good night.”  
  
Dom stops, blinking in confusion. “What?”  
  
Benjamin nods at the building they’re in front of, a five story walk-up apartment house. “This’s me.”  
  
“Oh, right,” Dom says, feeling a bit foolish for insisting they take his car to drive two blocks. “Alright. Uh . . . have a good night, uh, Benjamin.”  
  
Benjamin rolls his eyes again. “Just ‘Nash’ is fine. G’night.” He climbs the front steps to his apartment building. At the top, he takes out his keys and unlocks the door.  
  
“G’night, I guess.” Dom’s about to turn despondently back down Caton Avenue, when Nash looks back at him.  
  
“Heyya, Dom?” When Dom looks around hopefully, Nash crooks that little half-smile again. “Don’t be such a stranger at the bar. How the hell else am I gonna keep my hand in with those old-man drinks you like?”  
  
Grinning and nodding, Dom turns back down Caton before he can say or do anything to screw his second chance at a first impression up.  
  
Halfway to his car, when he glances back, Nash is still on his doorstep, watching him.  
  
He waves.  
  
Nash waves back.


End file.
